Hillary on Benghazi: Just because a jihadist group claims credit doesn’t make it so; Update: Attackers tied to Al Qaeda in Iraq?

posted at 10:09 pm on October 24, 2012 by Allahpundit

“Posting something on Facebook is not in and of itself evidence,” she says, responding to last night’s e-mail leak about Ansar al-Sharia taking credit for the attack. True enough, but that’s not the only link to AAS. As I reminded you yesterday, intercepts caught members of the group talking to members of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb during and after the attack. Libyan eyewitnesses saw the group’s founder outside the consulate while it was happening; he later admitted to having been there while insisting that he was merely directing traffic. There’s plenty of reason beyond the early claim of responsibility on Facebook to think they were involved, but to watch Hillary here, you’d think the Ansar al-Sharia mention in yesterday’s Reuters bombshell was some sort of false lead based on dubious preliminary intel that had evaporated later as the fog cleared.

Which brings me to a larger point. What’s the White House’s current position on whether the attack was inspired by the Mohammed movie? Are they seriously claiming that a hardened Islamist outfit with AQ links like Ansar al-Sharia wouldn’t have come after the American consulate if not for the provocation from the movie? Or are they claiming that AAS chose to capitalize on the outrage over the movie after news trickled out about the Cairo embassy assault earlier that day? I ask because we’re still seeing stuff like the following being pushed by the Times, weeks after the White House formally embraced the “terrorist attack” narrative:

Beyond the political issues, the [new Bin Laden] film may carry the risk of associating Mr. Obama with any backlash in a Muslim world already inflamed by the YouTube trailer for an insulting film portrayal of its prophet. In September riots erupted in Libya, Egypt and elsewhere as Muslim crowds reacted violently to what they perceived as the unforgivable insults of a scratch production, “The Innocence of Muslims,” some of which was posted on YouTube.

As recently as six days ago, State was still grasping for ways to blame the movie, which may be the one consistent thread in this entire mess. From the beginning, in the same Rose Garden remarks on September 12 in which he mentioned “acts of terror,” Obama alluded to the video’s role by saying, “We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.” If they’re sticking with the “offended terrorist” theory of the case even now, I’d like to hear more. That must have been some video to push a group like Ansar al-Sharia from grudging tolerance of the Great Satan’s local presence to “let’s kill the ambassador” rage.

Exit quotation from Mike Rogers: “It’s about the fact that decisions were made, big policy decisions, including elevating the video that, if you listen to those email or read those emails, nothing about the video — it elevated the video and actually caused more protests across the Middle East.” Click the image to watch.

U.S. intelligence believes that assailants connected to al Qaeda in Iraq were among the core group that attacked the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, a U.S. government official told CNN.

That would represent the second al Qaeda affiliate associated with the deadly September 11 attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

Previously, intelligence officials said there were signs of connections to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the North African wing of the terror group…

According to the official, others in the core group are suspected of having ties to the Libyan group Ansar al-Sharia, and many of them are believed to be Egyptian jihadis.

That’s three separate jihadist outfits participating. According to CNN, there were upwards of 40 attackers in the first wave. Free question for any members of the White House press corps who are reading: What’s Al Qaeda in Iraq doing in Libya?

Blowback

Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.

Comments

A Rush caller mentioned yesterday that drones like the one that filmed the attack aren’t just standing by in case something happens in Benghazi. One has to reserve time on those things. There are only so many, they ain’t cheap to run, and there are few operators.

For a drone to be over the consulate during the attack almost discloses that someone in the US govt wanted it there at a certain time. Someone knew the attack was coming so they reserved time for that drone to get it on scene.

Maybe, maybe not, but if a drone could get there post haste, so could have ten Sea Kings full of Marines.

So the embassy was left defenseless, and a drone shows up outa nowhere. Hmmmm….

Perhaps the reason the consulate was left completely defenseless after having been bombed twice in previous months, and after the Brits closed their embassy for safety concerns, was that the administration’s October Surprise was to trade ambassador Stevens for the Blind Sheik.

Egypt has already declared that they want him back, and Obooba might have thought that he’d be a hero if he engaged in some “tough negotiations” with the “kidnappers” and won the ambassador’s freedom right before the election.

Why was that drone “unarmed” (Catherine Herridge, FoxNews)?
If trouble was anticipated, did we also “anticipate” that we would/could not respond to such an attack?
Was Stevens sacrificed to The Narrative?

This video that may or may not have ever been made, that no one may or may not have ever been seen,
Is a CIA test run of their new Weapon of Mass Destruction called the Offended Muslim, code named OFFMUS Offend them and point them in the right direction and 10 million offended Muslims will do the rest for you. The Muslims don’t even understand that they have been duped. I know this to be true because the “MAN ON THE GRASSY KNOLL” told me so, and General Petraeus is in Hull Defilade.

Seriously, try to find out;

1. “HOW MANY” people were in the compound?
If someone knows, no one tells. WHY?

2. “HOW MANY PEOPLE WERE ACTUALLY KILLED”?
We are told 4 but it seems that it is 5opps 6, but the last one came from a different compound and was killed after the attack started and does not count. WHY?

Hillary Clinton….. What a maroon…. When will she ever learn? Doormat mentality…. first Billyboy, now BarackO….

Uh, here’s the deal Ms. Clinton…. you knew there was an attack at our Embassy… You chose to let people die, then you lied over and over again to the American people about a ridiculous video no one had seen… YOU and YOUR foolish administration and President along with your complicit media lap dogs created a frenzy of uprisings aimed directly at additional Embassy’s with your lies about this film and the supposed protests associated with it.

Much blood on your hands…literally dripping with innocent victims.

HISTORY… will be written… timelines will be very important. When did you all get that phone call? WHY was nothing done? The you-tube video will have a click and share record… many people had already in the early stages taken screenshots of what those counts on the video were. Incompetence is one thing, You ALL lied and covered up the fact that none of you have the capability of holding your office or your jobs!

We know we can’t believe anything you say… not a one of you. Oh yes we truly expect a capture of the people that “caused” this…. It wont be the truth… someone will grab a random street thug name him as the culprit, claim all kinds of proof it is THE GUY(s), an WHAA-LAA October surprise… VOTE FOR US because we caught the bad guys we let attack our Embassy and kill our people. YOU PEOPLE ARE CRAZY!

The Libyan identified as Karim Ahmed Essam el-Azizi was killed by a bomb he had tried to use against the Egyptian security forces during a Wednesday raid targeting him and other militants with suspected links to al Qaeda in Cairo’s eastern district of Nasr City. Four Egyptian militants were detained in the operation to net Libyan militants suspected in last month’s attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

/reported 7 hours ago

So some of those terrorists involved attacking our Benghazi Embassy were from Egypt as well.